The condition of a market in which there are many sellers of slightly differentiated goods, sellers and buyers are reasonably aware of conditions that may affect the market, each seller has some control over his good's price, and sellers find it relatively easy to enter and exit the market.

Suppose that two firms produce differentiated products and compete in prices. as in class, the two firms are located at two ends of a line one mile apart. consumers are evenly distributed along the line. the firms have identical marginal cost, $60. firm b produces a product with value $110 to consumers.firm a (located at 0 on the unit line) produces a higher quality product with value $120 to consumers. the cost of travel are directly related to the distance a consumer travels to purchase a good. if a consumerhas to travel a mile to purchase a good, the incur a cost of $20. if they have to travel x fraction of a mile, they incur a cost of $20x. (a) write down the expressions for how much a consumer at location d would value the products sold by firms a and b, if they set prices p_{a} and p_{b} ? (b) based on your expressions in (a), how much will be demanded from each firm if prices p_{a} and p_{b} are set? (c) what are the nash equilibrium prices?

Atrough in the business cycle occurs when

Aprimary advantage of organizing economic activity within firms is thea. ability to coordinate highly complex tasks to allow for specialized division of labor. b. low administrative costs because of reduced bureaucracy. c. eradication of the principal-agent problem. d. high-powered incentive to work as salaried employees for an existing firm.